


Flicker

by bigbootsmanofwar



Series: Wax [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 14:46:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/954377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigbootsmanofwar/pseuds/bigbootsmanofwar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two constants in Derek’s life; Laura and Stiles. When one begins to flicker and bleed, he thinks maybe he’s going slowly insane. He doesn’t mind so much. </p>
<p>""I miss you." Not the words he’d meant, and yet they’re the words that come. And he does. He misses Laura more than he misses anyone he’s ever lost. It feels like a betrayal to admit that, because he misses his whole family, but Laura is the one who saved him. Who looked after him, and Laura is and always will be his Alpha."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flicker

The first time it happens, Derek can feel the air actually being knocked right out of him, and he might as well be flat on his back, because he hasn’t been this floored in a very long time. Admittedly, he’s halfway to dead at this point, and the loss of breath might be due to that, but he can feel it, he _knows_ it’s got nothing to do with the poison streaming through his veins, sapping the life out of him. Stiles is freaking out above him, the concrete floor is hard and cold beneath him, and his chest is tightening, pain he can barely conceal shooting daggers, and for a good moment, he thinks, this is it, he’s finally dying. Kate’s got him, like she should have back when she burned his family, and he’s dead.

There’s relief, but the sweetness of it is soured by unexpected panic, and he realises, he doesn’t entirely want to die. That’s a surprise. What’s more of a surprise is Stiles’ stupid boyish, hysterical face flickering, and he stops breathing for real this time. Laura’s leaning over him, right where Stiles should be. His breath comes back all at once, and he’s leaning forward, trying to reach out to her. His limbs don’t move. He’s never bought into any of this afterlife bullshit, or he would have tried to join his family before now, but now, he thinks maybe she’s here to take him home. Not that he’s _ever_ admitting that goddamn thought, she’d take the piss out of him. “What are you, just gonna let this brat cut your fucking arm off? Get _up_ ,” she’s snarling, all bared teeth and eyes flashing red, and he’s scrambling up before he even realises, away from Laura, because she’s _mad_ , and she’s his Alpha, and he does what she says.

She grins, and flickers, and Stiles is back, but he’s not looking at Derek anymore, his eyes are on the doorway, and when Derek’s eyes focus back into reality, he realises Scott is the one who stopped his amputation. Not Laura. The realisation makes his chest ache. He can still feel the rush of affection from the grin she gave him. Except she wasn’t there, she was dead, she was cut in half and buried in their backyard, and he’s alone again. The antidote isn’t as sweet as it should be.

****************************************

After that, he writes it off as a hallucination brought on by the effects of the poison. It’s just his mind playing cruel tricks on him, and he’s come to accept that as truth. There’s no other explanation. He lets it go reluctantly, doesn’t allow himself to dwell on it, except sometimes at night when he’s lying in the middle of the wrecked Hale home, when the loft is too confining, too stuffy, too _not home_ , and he replays the grin over in his mind, the flash of red in her eyes, the same red she used to get when he’d mouth off, or stay out past the curfew she set, though any kind of curfew in New York was a stupid idea.

He can’t look at Stiles for a good few weeks without his feeling his stomach churning, because he’s half hoping the kid will flicker again and Laura will be back to hiss and spit and yell at him, boss him around and pull his hair and pin him to the ground when he needs kicking back into place. He doesn’t, and Derek’s disappointment coats his tongue, thick and heavy, every time he sees the human, stable and opaque and not flickering at all. He’s slowly going insane, he thinks.

It turns out, the slowly going insane? Not so slow. He can hear Stiles’ panicked voice over the phone, and can picture the kid trying to run from his Uncle, (Uncle Peter, and his breath is gone again, Uncle Peter killed Laura, Uncle Peter butchered his sister, his Alpha). He tries to keep a hold of himself. He fails. His mind is beginning to shut down, because it’s up to him to save this stupid kid, the kid who flickers into Laura in his mind, and he’s not great at doing this on his own, this is an Alpha’s job, he’s not an Alpha. Stiles’ voice is still chattering in his ear, and it’s not making things any better, but it fades out, and Derek can hear familiar growling instead, rumbling in his ear, shooting down his spine. Laura. Alpha. Not happy. “Run, you stupid boy, go help him.” And he runs, Laura’s voice ringing, reverberating on the inside of his skull.

Stiles lives. In the end. And Derek’s more relieved than he would have thought. The relief of saving the boy is sweeter than it had been when Scott had saved him, and he knows its tinged with the pride of having done what Laura wanted him to do. This time, he can’t brush it aside as poison-induced. Laura spoke to him, and he didn’t even need the bleeding red of her eyes to feel it burning into him. He’s going insane. His dead sister is speaking to him, and what’s worse, he’s going to grow dependent on it, just like he did six years ago. It’s probably not fair on Stiles that Derek winces every time he speaks for at least a week after that.

*****************************************

Laura doesn’t come to him when he kills Peter. He’d stupidly expected to see her face, to hear her, to feel fingers at the back of his neck. He gets nothing but a spray of blood across his face and an overwhelming /surge/ of power, unlike anything he’s ever felt before. He knows in an instant that he’s an Alpha. This is Alpha power. This is what Laura felt when the last of their family burned one too many times, when they all died. When Peter died, just for an instant, and power passed to her, this is what she felt. It’s just as bitter for him as it was for her.

Derek was never supposed to be an Alpha, and he knows it. When Talia grew too old for the power, it would be passed to Laura. The eldest. They all knew that. Laura was going to lead their pack, and Derek, despite the rough-housing, and teasing, and insults thrown back and forth, was happy to follow her. This doesn’t happen. Their pack is snuffed out. It’s Derek and Laura Hale, and the only reason they’re not two Omegas on the run is because Laura holds their power, and Derek clings to that so tightly, he thinks he might be the most loyal Beta anyone ever had.

He begins to lose hope that she’s ever coming back to him. He’s drowning as an Alpha, trying his hardest, doing what he knows Alphas are supposed to do, he’s making himself a family, and he’s helping kids, but his head is beneath the water and he can’t break the surface, no matter how hard he’s kicking. It’s funny, then, isn’t it, that Laura chooses to come back when he’s literally struggling to keep his head above water. Well, not so much struggling as paralysed. Letting Stiles, and it’s always fucking Stiles, why is it  _always_ fucking Stiles there, keep him afloat.

The smell of chlorine is overwhelming, but the smell of Stiles is rivalling it hard, sweat and panic and something sharp he can’t identify. The kid’s stronger than Derek gives him credit for at first, and he’s silently impressed (because he can’t be very fucking vocal like this) that he isn’t drowning right now. Stiles is keeping his head above water, and he might be drowning internally, but his body is at the mercy of a teenager who looks like his sister sometimes.

Stiles’ scent changes, and it’s quick and abrupt and Derek has no warning before it’s not Stiles’ face pressed into his neck, struggling to keep him up, it’s Laura’s, breath fanning out, damp and warm against his skin. “I knew I liked this one for a reason, little brother,” she’s murmuring, and the tone is almost identical to the tone she used when she caught him staring at boys in the city, playful and teasing and all-knowing. If he could make any kind of sound, he’d whine. “Keep kicking,” and this time, her voice is gentle, the way it only ever got when they’d lie in bed together, skin pressed close in an attempt to emulate _pack_ , the warm, safe feeling of pack.

And just like that, she’s gone again, and Stiles is treading water beside him, shouting at someone on the side of the pool, and look at that, Derek’s back in reality again. He’s not as disappointed when he realises Stiles won’t flicker again. 

He kicks. Hard. Hard as he can, until the next wave crashes over his head and he’s spluttering for breath again.

************************************************

It’s a little easier to look at Stiles after that. The hope of seeing the flicker is still there in his chest, but it’s dampened. It’s insanity, he knows, and yet, he’s less bothered now. Laura shows up when she needs him. Laura’s still his Alpha, in his own head. It matters to him, and that’s _all_ that matters. That even if he’s an Alpha, and he’s not a fucking good Alpha, he has Laura, and Laura will come back if she’s needed. She has to. He holds tight to that notion.

Things get better. A little. He likes these kids he’s turned. They feel like pack. Not the same as his family, not the same as Laura. But they’re family, and he looks after them. He trains them the best way he knows how, and it feels like they’re beginning to love him. Isaac, at least, loves him, this he can feel. He looks at the kid, his first Beta, his strongest Beta, and thinks how much Laura would have liked him. Mouthy, determined, flirty. She would have had a field day.

The wave, it turns out, is when half his family leaves him. He’s done a shitty job of protecting them, they’re scared, and they leave him. He feels like the loss is going to turn him inside out, but Laura doesn’t come to shout, or whisper in his ear, or dig her claws into his arm or flash her eyes at him. There’s not even a whisper of her. He’s trying to kick, but it’s not working. He’s being dragged under.

Stiles isn’t supposed to be the one who drags him back up, forces his head above water, but he is, the fact that Stiles gets /taken/, right under his nose, and he’s supposed to be protecting these kids, is enough to shock him awake. Stiles, the kid who flickers, the kid who he’s had in the back of his mind for so long, intertwined with memories of his sister, of his family, and the human has no right being there, is hurt, and it’s Derek’s fault. There’s an exhale beside him, one that’s not his, when he sees bruises, when he sees blood, and his head turns. Laura’s beside him, and she’s not even looking at him. She’s looking at Stiles, and this is sign enough. Stiles is important. Stiles cannot be hurt anymore.

No words come this time. He’s oddly OK with this. She’s gone when he blinks, but her scent lingers, and he thinks he can feel it curling around him like a dog at his feet. He looks at Stiles, and his chest loosens. He doesn’t understand this relief that once again, the human has escaped death, but he understands that it’s there. And so is Laura. That’s enough for him.

************************************************

Stiles doesn’t argue when Derek shows up in his room unannounced this time. He almost looks as if he’s been expecting it. It’s summer, the days are long and hot, and Stiles is mostly alone. Derek can smell it on him. His father works, Scott and Isaac (and Isaac never left him, god, he loves that kid more than he thought could love anything after the fire) spend their time together training, things a human can’t do and probably never will do. Derek doesn’t say anything about it, but he does plant himself on Stiles’ couch, and listens to the kid ramble. There’s no flicker for weeks, not even a hint of it. Derek realises after the first few times they’ve sat through a whole film together, he’s stopped looking for it.

Finally, Derek gets fucking sick of sitting around in Stiles’ house, which the kid seems content to do for the entirety of summer, and forces them outside. He’s met with much whining and argument, but in the end, Stiles follows him like a puppy down to the lake he knows is out there in the middle of the woods. Laura used to bring him out here when they were kids. It was a Hale place, and he’d made the mistake of saying that very quietly when the two of them lay on the shores underneath the hot sun, drying off. Stiles had looked at him with something he hadn’t seen in a long while.

Derek swears he can hear Laura’s laughter from somewhere between the trees when Stiles leans over to kiss him, and Derek’s eyes widen in surprise. But for once, instead of hanging onto the sound, he pushes it aside. Stiles is here, and Laura is not. And he kisses back, hard. They don’t return home until the stars are dotting the sky, and the cool night air brushes their damp skin.

***************************************************

Halfway through summer, when the sun stays in the sky for so long Derek thinks it’s going to just refuse to set at all, after they have spent countless hours exploring each other’s bodies, mouths mapping out every inch of skin they can possibly find, after more orgasms than Derek has had in his entire life, after enduring god-awful superhero movies, after watching Scott’s nose wrinkle up when he went to hug Stiles, Derek’s scent familiar and unfamiliar drenched into Stiles’ skin, Derek realises he hasn’t thought about Laura in months.

He’s thought about Stiles. And the two aren’t interchangeable anymore. They’re laying in bed, Derek’s bed, because Derek can’t quite stomach the thought of the Sheriff catching them in bed together. The massive windows are open, because Stiles wrenched at them until they gave, and though Derek could have helped, he’d found it much more entertaining to watch Stiles struggle. The night air is warm, still, and fuck, California gets hot, but that’s just how he likes it, because Stiles kicks off the sheets and sleeps nude when it’s this hot, and Derek is afforded a view he suspects few have ever had.

A still, peaceful Stiles Stilinski. Quiet, except for the soft snuffles he makes as his chest rises and falls. He’s gotten taller, and let his hair grow longer, purely, Derek suspects, because he likes having it tugged at. His skin is mostly unblemished tonight, a long, seemingly endless expanse of milky, pale white, dotted with moles and freckles he’d been insecure about at first. Now he demands Derek play connect the dots with his tongue. Derek obliges gladly.

If he’d had Stiles before, now would be the time he’d take the kid home to meet his family. In fact, as he trails his fingertips down the curve of Stiles’ back, he thinks maybe they would think he was Derek’s mate. And Derek doesn’t think he’d argue. It’s a strange realisation, because Stiles is unexpected in more ways than one, and Derek will never bring him home to meet his family. Stiles has become his family, and he doubts the teenager even knows it.

"He knows, Der." And months of not thinking about Laura is broken, because she’s speaking into his ear. He can feel warmth pressed against his back, fingers in his hair, sensations he knows can’t be real, because Laura’s only in his mind, but they feel as real as the solid, lanky boy beside him, and he’s sure as hell not arguing with having his big sister holding him again. He doesn’t turn, because if he turns, she’ll be gone again, he can tell. Instead, he opens his mouth, and speaks.

"I miss you." Not the words he’d meant, and yet they’re the words that come. And he does. He misses Laura more than he misses anyone he’s ever lost. It feels like a betrayal to admit that, because he misses his whole family, but Laura is the one who saved him. Who looked after him, and Laura is and always will be his Alpha.

Breath against his neck, fingers scraping at his scalp, and he thinks Laura might answer him, as if they were having a real conversation. But Stiles stirs, and Laura’s breath disappears, her warmth vanishes.

"M’right here," Stiles slurs, rolling over and pulling Derek closer, fingers scraping through his hair, legs curling around Derek’s own, even though it’s too hot for it. There’s Stiles breath on his neck, evening out as he falls back asleep, and Derek’s … happy. For tonight. Maybe one day he’ll tell Stiles about Laura. But not tonight.


End file.
